Setting up data retention

Who can use this feature

Supported on certain Enterprise plans. If you don't see this feature available in your account, reach out to your customer success manager.

Internal policies may require you to delete data after a set amount of time. With Writer data retention features, you can meet information governance requirements, across all of your organization's teams, without constant document review.

Configuring data retention policies

If you are an org admin, you can configure data retention features for your entire account.

NOTE: Data retention is only configurable at the organization level. Turning on these features will instantly impact all of the teams in your organization.

Under Admin > Settings > Account > Data retention, you can decide which types of assets you wish to manage, and what deletion schedule they should follow.

By default, your account will be set to No automatic deletion. With this selection, all of your assets will be maintained indefinitely until a user manually deletes them.

You can select an option to delete your assets every 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months.

If you opt to set up a deletion schedule, you'll be asked which assets you wish to delete:

Docs - All the documents created by Writer users in the Writer editor
Drafts - All drafts generated by Writer, including those generated by extensions
Uploaded files - All files or media uploaded into Writer apps, including Ask Writer, recaps, the image analyzer app, and any prebuilt or custom apps. Note: This option does not include Knowledge Graph files.
Chat sessions - All chat sessions created by users, including in Ask Writer or in any prebuilt or custom apps.

When you've selected a deletion schedule, we'll show you a preview of how many assets will be impacted by your selection. We will display each class of assets you've checked, even if the number of assets impacted is zero.

You will only see this confirmation screen if your selection will result in the immediate deletion of at least one asset.

If your selection will result in the deletion of any assets, you must confirm your decision by typing the displayed phrase into the text input field, then selecting Accept and delete.

Once you've selected Accept and delete, Writer will immediately delete all impacted assets.

NOTE: Typing in the confirmation phrase and selecting Accept and delete will result in the immediate deletion of the affected files. This action is irreversible. There is nothing Writer can do to restore deleted files, even if you immediately select a different deletion schedule.

Messaging

Once you've enabled a deletion schedule for your Writer account, users will see messages across their account and within Writer extensions. They will see two types of messaging:

1) General messaging about the organization's data retention schedule

2) Asset-level warning about an impending deletion

Asset-level warnings will become visible when the asset is scheduled to be deleted within seven days.

Frequently asked questions

Will data retention features impact my Knowledge Graphs?

No. Data retention features do not impact the files stored within your Knowledge Graphs in any way. Data retention features only impact files created by Writer (docs, drafts, chat sessions) or uploaded directly to Writer (prebuilt & custom apps, Ask Writer, etc).

How does this impact apps built in AI Studio?

This set of data retention features only impacts assets within the Writer app. If you used AI Studio to build a document summarizing app, you may upload a number of test files during the QA process. These test files are not impacted by the deletion schedule. However, if that document summarizing app has been deployed to Writer, any apps uploaded to that AI Studio-built app by your colleagues will be subject to the deletion policy.